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“Blackbirds” review – Dallas Morning News

March 22, 2015March 21, 2015

Gretchen Peters is no stranger to hit songs. She wrote “Independence Day,” which Martina McBride released as a Top 20 single and which earned Peters song of the year honors from the Country Music Association.

Peters has written songs for Neil Diamond, Etta James, Bryan Adams and many others, but what often goes unsaid is how compelling her own voice is. To hear her sing songs as exquisitely crafted as those on her new album, Blackbirds, well, you wouldn’t want anyone else to sing them. This work of art belongs to her.

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You have to watch the quiet ones. Sometimes the loudest truths are served with a whisper. Gretchen Peters, who has written some of country’s most intelligent songs of life’s complications, offers a hushed benediction for a woman emerging from the chilled-over remains of what is truly not enough to flower into full potential.- Holly Gleason / No Depression

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If Peters’ ’96 debut, The Secret of Life, had the answers, her edgier follow-up poses the questions, mostly about how to navigate rough emotional terrain. Full of surprises – “Eddie’s First Wife” has a randy lesbian at its center – Peters brings the pop sensibility of Sheryl Crow to meditations on Amelia Earhart and Picasso’s cat. Easy to see why she’s already captured the Brits. B+-Alanna Nash / Entertainment Weekly